This second volume of John C. G. Röhl's definitive biography of Kaiser Wilhelm II is a hybrid between narrative history and a documentary collection. The narration is buttressed by and interspersed with lengthy quotations from documents, especially unpublished ones from the Royal Archives in Windsor and General Count Alfred von Waldersee's diaries, hitherto available in print only in the falsified edition by Heinrich O. Meisner. This richly detailed account rarely alludes to secondary sources; the reader without previous knowledge of German domestic and foreign policy might well be overwhelmed by the level of detail; however, Röhl's argument is clear. He aims to restore Wilhelm in historiography as “the powerful and pernicious ruler that he actually was, a kind of missing link … between Bismarck and Hitler” (p. xiii). This volume succeeds in showing how Wilhelm built up and used his immense power from his accession in 1888 to the high point of personal regime from 1896 to 1900.